It’s where the long-time South Bay resident, considered one of the giants of Southern California’s rich motor racing heritage, won the Indianapolis 500 in 1963, just two years after he was named the Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year.

And it’s where the Torrance-based Vel’s Parnelli Jones Racing team, named after himself and his late business partner, won back-to-back Indy 500s in 1970 and 1971, further cementing Jones’ place in the lore of one of the world’s great racetracks.

So it was natural that Jones should see cars he drove and built end up at Indianapolis, where he was honored earlier this year on the 50th anniversary of his Indy 500 victory.

“I thought, I’m 80 years old, eventually where do I want my cars to go?” Jones said earlier this week as he sat behind the desk of his Torrance office, which remains jammed with artifacts from his racing past.

“I thought the right thing to do was to send them to Indianapolis. So that’s what we did.”

But before that occurred, Jones wanted to retain something more concrete than mere memories of objects that represented a lifetime of work. So he had the racing cars professionally photographed in a studio set up in his warehouse.

The result is a just released 200-page coffee table tome titled “The Cars of Vel Miletich and Parnelli Jones.”

“I’m proud of it,’ Jones said. “Each one of them, I lived them. A picture is worth a thousand words, but I lived each one of them.”

Jones will sign copies of the book from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Burbank’s Autobooks-Aerobooks, 2900 W. Magnolia Blvd. Founded in 1951, the store is as much an institution in Southern California automotive circles as Jones.

“He was here a couple of months ago (signing) his autobiography,” owner Tina Van Curen said. ““We sold out (of over 100 copies). It was a mob scene.

“He’s a very popular guy and he’s a really nice guy,” she added. “He’s probably one of the most famous American race drivers that’s alive — anyone who knows anything about cars and racing knows Parnelli Jones.”

Advertisement

Part artwork, part historical document, the lavishly illustrated work traces the rise and fall of a team that dominated American motor sports for about a decade in the late 1960s and early 1970s until its major sponsor pulled out.

The team won three national driving championships and nurtured the early careers of household names such as Mario Andretti, A.J. Foyt and Al Unser.

And it raced in a dizzying and unprecedented variety of motor sports, as Tony George, former president and CEO of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, noted in the book’s foreword.

“The Vel’s Parnelli Jones team eventually encompassed so many different disciplines of motorsport at the same time as to boggle the mind,” he wrote. “In addition to running what was then the USAC National Championship circuit, they were also fielding cars in the USAC Silver Crown dirt events, Formula 5000 events on road courses, NHRA drag racing, off-road racing and even Formula one — all at the same time.

“It is unlikely we will ever see anything like that again.”

Jones, who lives in the exclusive, gated Palos Verdes Peninsula city of Rolling Hills, became a successful businessman, dabbling in real estate development and building a chain of 47 eponymously named tire stores.

But racing, as both a driver and team co-owner, remains his passion.

“They’re both very thrilling,” he said. “You put your heart, soul, money in a program like that so you become part of it.

“I’ve always prided myself as not so much having talent, but having a desire, a being able to kick ass kind of attitude. Nobody gives you anything, you have to take it.”

It was a philosophy that served Jones well on and off the track and was reflected in the cars he created that meant “we were ahead of our time,” he said.

Innovations included using talent and materials from the South Bay’s aerospace industry to create lightweight racing cars, for instance.

His personal favorite remains the blue and yellow 1970 PJ Colt Ford Johnny Lightning Special Unser drove to the team’s first Indy 500 win. Car and driver set a track record in qualifying en route to pole position and led 190 of the 200 laps in what Jones still marvels was a “dominating” performance.

“We really cleaned the clock,” Jones said. “The only time we lost the lead was when we made the first pit stop.”

But the most popular car now residing in the Indianapolis museum is Jones’ “Big Oly” 1969 Ford Bronco that he drove to several victories in notable off-road races, including the 1973 Baja 500. Kids, he said, love the distinctive yellow overgrown convertible.

Jones still has plenty of memorabilia lining the walls of his offices: letters from the likes of President Ronald Reagan and speed freak Steve McQueen, the late actor, as well as the cowboy hat he lost during his Indianapolis victory lap and was reunited with this year.

Sometimes, it all seems a little surreal, even to Jones.

“I’ve had a wonderful racing career, not only as a driver” he said. “Racing has been part of my life. I look back on it and say, ‘That wasn’t really me.’ I can’t believe I did all those things. It’s like somebody else did it.”